The Supervising Commission for Elections request to stop Maharat’s activities is a restriction on civil society

The Electoral Reform Consortium expresses its concern about the increasing restrictions on public spaces in Lebanon and on freedom of opinion and expression in general, the most recent of which is the restriction practiced by the Electoral Supervisory Commission within the framework of its narrow interpretation of the electoral law, especially Article 20 of the electoral law regarding the monitoring and observation of the electoral process by civil society.

This comes against the backdrop of two letters sent by the commission to Maharat Foundation on the issue of the association’s activity, which the commission considered as “participation in accompanying and supervising the elections illegally,” in a series of correspondence between it and Maharat, of which the commission published on its page on the official website of the parliamentary elections in the data and decisions section only the second letter without Maharat’s response. Publishing part of the correspondence without Maharat’s response, or publishing any of the other violations or warnings to any violating party, is considered selective to suggest that Maharat’s work is illegal, while the Commission should have adopted the highest standards of transparency in publishing all correspondence, alerts, violations, decisions and circulars related to the electoral process, in accordance with the Right of Access to Information Law.

The coalition emphasizes that Article 19 of the Electoral Law, which stipulates the tasks of the Commission, specifically paragraph 9, to accept and examine the applications of electoral observers and grant them permits, and Article 20, to which the Commission refers, which gives it the authority to consider requests to “accompany the elections and monitor their proceedings,” confirm that the Commission’s authority is limited to granting permits to local observers to accompany the executive process of the elections on the ground and monitor the executive proceedings and obtain permits that authorize them to enter public administrations and polling stations. This makes the activity practiced by Maharat by monitoring media performance during election campaigns not fall within the concept of accompanying the elections and monitoring their proceedings as stipulated in Articles 19 and 20.

The Commission’s failure to take Maharat’s clarification, where it stressed that its office work does not require presence on the ground and obtaining licenses to enter public administrations or polling stations, is a worrying indicator of restrictions on civil society associations and their freedom to access, analyze and publish information, as any individual, researcher, association or even the private sector can monitor the course of the elections, each within his competence and from his office, and this is a legitimate right in a democratic country whose constitution guarantees freedom of expression, freedom of information circulation and freedom of associations. Maharat Foundation has been issuing election media monitoring reports since 2009, including 2018, and has provided technical assistance to the Electoral Supervisory Commission headed by Judge Nadim Abdel Malek in 2018 as well, training the Commission’s monitors and helping to equip its monitoring system.

The coalition rejects this restriction by the Supervisory Authority on Maharat and calls on the Authority to return from its narrow interpretation of the law. The coalition supports Maharat’s continuation of its work and the reports it issues as part of its legitimate right to support the public debate on the implementation of public policies and issue recommendations on them, especially since the narrow interpretation of Article 20 would restrict the work of all associations or researchers and academics who analyze and publish information and data if they include any criticism of the electoral process or the role of public bodies and authorities.

The coalition also calls for an immediate post-election workshop to reform the legal and procedural framework for elections, clarify texts so that they are not used as pretexts to restrict the work of civil society, and go immediately to a fundamental reform that the Electoral Reform Coalition has always called for: an independent electoral administration.

The Electoral Reform Coalition includes the Lebanese Association for Electoral Democracy, the Lebanese Association for the Promotion of Transparency-No Corruption, the Lebanese Union for Persons with Motor Disabilities, and Maharat Foundation.